Demands for end-user cellular mobile performance, also known as Mobile Broadband (“MBB”), are expected to increase by factors of 1000 over the next 5 years with MBB connections expected to reach nearly 6 billion by 2020. The forecast for these demands are concentrated on areas where there are high-densities of people, especially of an affluent enough nature that they are utilizing the latest in mobile devices (smartphones and similar user equipment). In addition to humans, an influx of embedded wireless radios within a wide array of machines and personal devices (cars, appliances, etc.) will further increase demands, this outgrowth is known as Internet of Things (IoT) or Machine to Machine (M2M) and is anticipated to 15 billion connected devices on the global networks by 2020. Bandwidth-consuming applications, including video communications and streaming of broadcast quality video, may push the demand for bits-per-second on a per user basis. As a result, the utilization of available, shared spectrum is critical—requiring a higher quantity of smaller-sized cells that can support larger quantities of users while delivering increases in each user's performance.
Small cell technology set out to address this growth. However, the nature of most small cells is such that they tend to have limitations in signal delivery, require many to cover an area, are limited in their ability to support an influx of active users, and create interference with each other, which reduces performance at many areas of cell edges resulting in users' devices being in a soft handover state often as user moves from one small cell coverage area to another—and often all of these transitions (handovers) require orchestration back to the core network, further complicating the solution. Add to this the fact that at each small cell requires backhaul considerations to each devices, typically demanding a dedicated network installed to assure capacity and security—a costly method to deliver. The results from all these factors is it has relegated small cells to be most suitable in very small office facilities.
Distributed antenna systems (DAS), in contrast, are exceptional at delivering balanced signal across medium and larger facilities. Unlike Small Cell technology, a DAS acts can either look like a single cell or smaller number of cells that do not require as many cellular-protocol handoffs when a user moves from one DAS antenna coverage area to another. Even when multiple cells are applied the ability to fine tune signal edges allows the RF design for a building to provide much better overall performance for users. They may combine radios with different power classes to optimize coverage, can be used to provide multiple-bearer paths to increase performance, and may carry multiple bands across multiple carriers to deliver multi-operator service within facilities. Conventionally, they are completely transparent to end users on the system and are dependent on traditional baseband processors (called BBUs or BaseBand Units) and their surrounding control infrastructure to “Roam” users from one cell to another. BBUs are the components that carry voice and/or data between a user's cellphone and the core cellular wireless network (e.g., ATT's network or Verizon's network). In some systems, the BBU may be a component of an eNodeB, which may also include a radio head. Conventional BBUs have no knowledge that they are on a DAS system, and thus they depend on the DAS to remain transparent, minimizing any extracurricular delays, and in many aspects maintaining its transparency. The conventional DAS and BBU function to provide capabilities, but they suffer drawbacks and deficiencies because they essentially ignore that each other exists.